World Health Organization (WHO) donates supplies to boost infection prevention and control in Schools in Sierra Leone, as they reopen
The World Health Organization (WHO) has newly donated infection prevention and Control materials for the Mpox response to Sierra Leone’s national health authorities. The supplies aim to enhance the government’s response efforts to Mpox in schools. With this donation, the WHO has now delivered financial and technical support worth USD one million since the Government of Sierra Leone declared Mpox a Public Health Emergency in January 2025.
The donation, mobilized through the WHO African Regional Office, includes hand-wash sets, basic IPC commodities, 30-liter Buckets with covers, receiving buckets, stand stools, waste bins, and hand-wash detergents. These supplies will be dispatched to health facilities and schools in hotspot districts, based on ongoing needs and reports of new cases. The supplies will help prevent the spread of Mpox among students, teachers, and health workers
With the support of WHO and other partners, the number of Mpox cases reported has decreased from an average of 17 new cases per day to seven, representing a 58% reduction. This significant reduction is a testament to the effectiveness of the measures being implemented. Since January 2025, more than 6,800 suspected cases of Mpox have been recorded country-wide; of these, more than 5,200 cases were confirmed, 56 deaths recovered, and over 5,100 recoveries.
“These IPC items are timely. As schools reopen, WHO is committed to protecting the lives of school children and those of medical teams. The donated items are meant for distribution to schools across the country, ” said Dr Thompson Igbu, Cluster Lead for the Communicable and Non-communicable Diseases (CND) “WHO will remain working side by side with the Ministry of Health, NPHA, and health partners who have ensured the Mpox cases are now at single digit,” added Dr Igbu.
Receiving the items, Dr. James Squire thanked the WHO for its support, both past and present. “We thank WHO and other partners for their continued support to the Mpox response. The success we have achieved so far would not have been possible without the support of our trusted partners, such as the WHO. We have received both financial, logistic, and technical support from the Organization,” said Dr James Squire, the Incident Manager for the Mpox response. “The most affected group of people affected by Mpox are students, mainly in secondary and tertiary institutions. These materials will go a long way in enforcing IPC and promoting hand hygiene in schools,” added Dr Squire.
Since the start of the outbreak, WHO has been on the ground from the first hours of the crisis, providing technical support, building the capacity of health workers in cases management and laboratory, surveillance, data management, resource mobilization, risk communication, deployment of national African Volunteers Health Corps and its technical teams, and providing medical supplies and supporting vaccination services required to halt the outbreak. The donation strengthens those efforts and ensures that school children stay safe at a time when schools are opening and need the assistance the most.
WHO’s response to Mpox has been made possible through the generous support of donors, including FCDO, GAVI, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany, who ensured that our teams had funds to reach the communities in the most remote places in Sierra Leone. However, sustained funding will be critical to bring the outbreak to zero.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of World Health Organization – Sierra Leone.
